Page 33 of Fighting His Fate
“You want the truth?” He couldn’t believe he was saying this. “Fine. Here it is. Every guy in my unit died when we came under fire in Afghanistan. Every guy but me.” Nothing good came from sharing this with other people. Only those who were there could ever really understand, but he was compelled to continue. “Good men, men with families who deserved to see them again, men who stood for something bigger than I’ve ever believed in. Okay?”
“You should have been the one to die.”
He twisted around. “Don’t you think I know that?”
“No, I mean that’s how you feel. Like you were the one who should have died instead of them.”
“Fucking ridiculous conversation, that’s what this is.”
She was quiet for several miles after that, just long enough for him to feel like a real shit for unloading on her like he had.
“Finish your story,” she said. “What happened between you and Joni?”
He sighed, thinking of the similarities between Joni and Grace. “She wanted me to talk about it. To get help. She wouldn’t back off.”
“So you cut her out of your life.”
He nodded. “I cut everyone out of my life. My wife, my friends. Everybody.” A sudden wave of emotion crested over him at the finality of those words. Regret for what he’d done, for what he’d allowed himself to lose. He was glad Grace was in the backseat so she couldn’t see his tight features. When he spoke, his voice was strangled. “They expected me to be a man I wasn’t anymore.”
She put her hand on his shoulder, surprising him. “I’m sorry. This must be really hard for you.”
He shrugged off her touch, forcing some normalcy into his tone. “Life’s a bitch, princess. Then you die.” He tilted the rearview mirror and met her stare, seeing the hurt the moment he put it there. “How are the boys doing?”
“Fine.”
His eyes went back to the road and he clenched the wheel more tightly. He never should have opened Pandora’s box. He should have kept his secrets to himself, and he chastised himself for sharing. “It’s not something I like to talk about, Grace.”
“I can tell.”
She was pissed. They were still more a ways away from where Joni and Luke had lived, the time stretching out before him like taffy. “I really appreciate you doing this.” He looked for her eyes in the mirror, but she didn’t meet his gaze.
“Uh-huh.”
He flipped the mirror back to its original position, the headlights of the car behind him catching his attention. They were square and wide-set, and he was sure they’d been there for quite a while. He made a mental note to keep an eye on it, grateful HERO Force was also on their tail. “I’m not sure what I’d do if I had to handle the twins on my own.”
“I think you’d be fine.”
“Really?”
“Definitely. They don’t talk back, and they have zero knowledge of acceptable behavior.”
He frowned. Definitely angry. His cell phone rang through the speakers, and he saw it was Moto. Grace climbed into the front seat as he answered it. “You’re on speaker. What do you got?”
“More info from the license plate on the stolen van from the hit-and-run. It was registered to a seventy-eight-year-old man who’s been institutionalized the past two years with Alzheimer’s.”
“Who reported it stolen?”
“Rodney Hamilton. Bogus address, didn’t give any ID. But get this—the nephew of our Alzheimer’s patient is Dr. Rick Fleming, CEO of Lamont Scientific where Joni worked. Even more interesting, Joni filed a restraining order against Fleming back in 2016. Seems they had a romantic relationship.”
“Jesus Christ,” said Brett, now recognizing the name. “He’s her crazy ex-boyfriend. Why the hell was she working for the guy who stalked her?”
“I found an article inFertilitymagazine where Joni mentions her past relationship with Fleming. She said Lamont Scientific was at the forefront of fertility research, and she’d always respected Fleming’s mind. She said they made a great team, if not a great couple, and she was happy to be working with him again. Some shit about discovering new frontiers in molecular fertility.”
“Send me that article, and see what you can find out about Fleming. I want to know everything, from his address right down to what brand of underwear he wears, Moto.”
“You got it.”
Toby hiccuped as Brett hung up. “It had to be Fleming. He had access to the van that killed her. Remember the videotape? It looked like the driver was crying. If he had feelings for Joni, a history, that makes sense.”
